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8 Celebrities Whose “Deaths” were Greatly Exaggerated

Until last year, when the Comedy King passed away, it seemed like a fake news report about Dolphy shedding his mortal coil would inevitably turn up like clockwork annually. Whether it was a silly joke about him drowning in calamansi (he had a Mr. Clean commercial back in the day that gave rise to this joke), or the premature rumors about his demise when he missed an awards show in 2009 due to illness.

He isn’t the only celebrity who found himself swarmed with rumors like these, though. Here are 8 more…

8. Vandolph

Cause Of “Death”: A second car accident in 2004. Rumors abounded that he was not as fortunate as the last time.

The Reality: While it is true that in 2001,Vandolph had a near-death experience in a car crash in Pangasinan that took the life of his then-girlfriend Ishi, and while it’s true that he did have a second car accident in 2004, he was completely unharmed in the latter. Apparently, the apple doesn’t really fall far from the tree, seeing how many death hoaxes his father had to put up with while he was still alive.

We Might Have Fallen for it If: They worked in the rumor from his first car crash about having his, er, Little Vandolph amputated. People would have talked more about it because of how lurid it sounds.

7. Jackie Chan

Cause Of “Death”: A fatal accident while filming a stunt for his movie. Pick a movie, any movie: he gets this rumor about him all the time.

The Reality: Not only is the most recent iteration (Just like the others, seeing as he’s still alive.of this hoax patently untrue, but the myth that Jackie Chan does all his stunts is actually not true, either. People just kept putting words in his mouth all these years!

We Might Have Fallen for it If: He fell off a mountain in New Zealand or Austria like all those other actors who died before him: Jeff Goldblum, The Rock, and Russel Crowe.

6. Bongbong Marcos

Cause Of “Death”: Stabbed and killed in a fight in school while he was studying in England. But that’s not the bizarre thing about this “death.” The urban legend goes that Bongbong was then cloned or replaced by a lookalike by his parents, and they continued to let this impostor live Bongbong’s life as if he were the real one, so the Bongbong Marcos running around at present is actually someone just pretending to be him.

The Reality: Here. Let’s have Bongbong Marcos himself (assuming that he isn’t a clone) explain how this funny story came to be.

We Might Have Fallen for it If: It didn’t sound eerily like another even more high-profile personality who supposedly died and was then replaced by an impersonator. You might know him, in fact. Some dude named…

5. Paul McCartney

Cause Of “Death”: A car crash in 1966 or 1967, which prompted the Beatles to replace him with a lookalike, who is still masquerading as Sir Paul to this very day.

The Reality: He still seems to have every bit of talent that the real Paul McCartney supposedly had before he supposedly died, so this seems implausible, but wow. The fan theories about Paul’s death, down to the hidden “clues” in the album cover to Abbey Road being a “funeral march” for the “fallen” Beatle, have to be seen to be believed. It just sounds so ridiculous, but some people just refuse to let go of a stupid story, no matter how preposterous. Just ask the 9/11 truthers.

We Might Have Fallen for it If: Paul McCartney ever returns to the Philippines. He kind of has a valid reason not to want to come back before he “died.”

4. Jon Bon Jovi

Cause Of “Death”: Yet another car crash in 2011. We’d like to imagine there were explosions involved, so we can say that Jon Bon Jovi went out in a Blaze of Glory.

The Reality: Jon Bon Jovi is still Livin’ On a Prayer. He probably even told his fans that “I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead” or something. He quickly debunked the rumor by posting a picture of himself holding a handwritten sign dated on the same day the death hoax started.

We Might Have Fallen for it If: You laid us down on a Bed of Roses? I got nothing, sorry.

3. Steve Burns, aka the Blues Clues Guy

Cause(s) Of “Death”: Heroin overdose, being run over by a car, and yes, even a Paul McCartney-style replacement. These rumors about him persisted as early as 1998 all the way to when he finally left the show—in 2002.

The Reality: He’s just fine, although he doesn’t look anything like his Blues Clues self now, especially since the first thing he did after leaving the show was to shave his head. It’s kind of bizarre how these rumors start, and especially traumatic for the kids watching the program.

We Might Have Fallen for it If: We didn’t grow up on Sesame Street and Batibot instead of Blues Clues. As it stands, we mostly felt just like a bunch of disaffected bystanders when we heard about all of this.

2. Naomi Morinaga, aka Annie ni Shaider

Cause Of“Death”: Rumored to have died of lung cancer after she supposedly fell into obscurity and turned to softcore porn to make ends meet.

The Reality: Naomi Morinaga married in 1999 and retired from acting. While it’s true that she posed nude for pictures at some point in her career, she certainly didn’t fall on hard times, much less die of the same thing Hiroshi Tsuburaya, aka Shaider, succumbed to. At 49 years of age at present, she is still the first brush with puberty for most boys who grew up in the ‘90s.

We Might Have Fallen for it If: Well, seeing as I didn’t even know she was still alive until while doing the research for this list, then I think it’s safe to say we all fell for it. But not as hard as we all fell for the “death” of…

We Might Have Fallen for it If: Well, plenty of people still believe he’s dead. He’s under a whole bunch of face paint, after all. And who knows? Maybe whenever the Warrior dies, his soul merely passes on to another deserving man, so he too shall become the next Ultimate Warrior.

Naaaaahhhhh.

So who else “died” in recent memory? Let us know in the Comments Section.

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That Paul McCartney one. Me and my siblings make fun of this all the time. Even over-analyzing the songs and the album cover just to link theories. There’s a mockumentary about it, and if you never knew the beatles enough, it’s amazingly convincing. Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson and Ferdinand Marcos are some of the famous topics at home for being dead yet a lot of people think are still alive.Hey, make a list of that!